Vulnerable
by retired-fangirl
Summary: "Don't say you're fine, Kingston, cause you're pale and sweaty, and you're never so, well, vulnerable looking." Matt catches Alex at an inopportune moment, and she prays Matt will turn around, leave, and overlook what he saw. [Bulimia, Doctor Who RPF, quasi mattex]
1. Trigger

A/N: I'm copying this from my ao3 account for two reasons: 1) I found other Doctor Who RPG fanfics on this site (the major reason I hadn't posted this here was because I wasn't sure if it was allowed-in face, I still don't think it is, but so-and-so did, so...), and 2) the authoress re-read this and thought 'This is good.'

Disclaimer: This story is fiction, and I don't know much regarding Matt Smith's and Alex Kingston's personal lives—honestly I know a lot less about them than most fans as I'm somewhat of a newbie. I assume, and hope, Alex Kingston does not have an eating disorder. In fact, it would upset me to learn that this beautiful, wonderful person felt so terrible about herself and be caught up in the hell that is an eating disorder.

Oh, and the fan is not me, nor is she based on myself.

...

Chapter 1: Trigger

"I come across as quite strong as a person but actually I am quite vulnerable." ~Alex Kingston

It was pleasant dinner. Reservations had been made at one of London's higher end restaurants (picked due to its location at the hotel most of the cast members booked a room at for the next round of interviews for the Who 50th Anniversary special), and Alex had thoroughly enjoyed the meal. Well, it had been more of a degustation once the wait staff and chef recognized the people sitting at the long table in the center. Even with the occasional awkward, excited waitress imploring for signatures on various regalia—"it's for my son; he's a huge fan of yours!"—Alex savored more than enough of very decadent, very expensive food. As testament to that, she popped an extra mouthful of garlicky, succulent roast in her mouth without thinking.

Dinner plates cleared and desserts half eaten, a young girl, maybe thirteen, Alex surmised, broke apart from a couple Alex assumed was her family and gazed upon Alex with reverence. Matt leaned across the table where he sat smack dab between Steven and David with a wicked grin plastered to his face. He whispered in her ear, "Got yourself an admirer there, Kingston."

Steven's face, the drawn eyebrows and slight thinning of his lips, expressed his dissatisfaction at another interruption. Alex adored the man's writing, but, god, his forte was not social relations. She shot him a small smile, an indication she was unruffled by the young girl. She knew she was fairly eminent, particularly because of Doctor Who, and she appreciated every fan. She remembered an instance where her fans cheered because she opted to push back her lunch to finish the queue. Forcing that thought to the back of her mind where she didn't have to dwell on the verity that her intent hadn't been solely martyring, she, instead, bit into sweet and tangy lemon custard.

She smiled at the girl, a charming enough child. The effervescent smile reminded her of a recent visit to Hollywood where twelve year old Salome had stumbled upon a member of her newest favorite boy band. Quickly, Alex discerned the girl was startlingly thin. "Hello," she said, and the girl flashed a tense smile.

"Um," the young fan glanced at the floor, "Sorry for interrupting…" She gestured at the table where only petite fours and various wine glasses remained. "Mum didn't want me to…you know, bother you." Alex glimpsed up, over the girl's head, at her parents. She noted the mother sent the girl a look of disapproval, similar to the same maternal consternation she found herself using with Salome on the occasions she had to discipline her (and, god, she felt so much like her own Mum in those moments!). She nodded her head perceptively at the mother—a universal 'it's all good' sign.

"That's alright, dear," Alex said, maternal instincts directing the conversation as usually she was wont to do with her younger fan base. The girl appeared barely older than Salome, so it was especially difficult to be strictly professional. "What did you need?"

The girl mumbled something too softly for Alex to make out. She twisted herself out of her seat and knelt by the girl. Up this close she noticed a blush forming on the girl's cheeks. "I-I. I wanted to let you know…"

Out of the corner of her eye, Alex saw Steven's impatience and Matt's curiosity. She ignored both and waited in silence for the girl to conclude her deliberation. The quiver in her hands as she clutched a small composition book to her chest clued Alex into her nervousness. "You're such an inspiration to me!" The words tumbled out of her mouth in one big jumble, and Alex couldn't help but deepen her smile.

"Aw, that's sweet. Thank you. Did you want to me to sign that for you?" She motioned at the composition book, and almost recoiled when the girl fervently whipped her head around.

"No!" The girl's eyes widened and her face looked outright horrified, and Alex felt as if she'd been plunged under ice cold water. "I mean, I don't…" She shook her head, less fiercely than a moment earlier and backed away from Alex.

Before Alex comprehended what happened, there was a tumult as the girl tripped over one of the bus boys (fortunately his hands had been empty save for a few dirty rags) with a squelch as two bodies plummeted to the floor. The girl's composition book fell to ground, opened, and Alex immediately recognized the writing for what it was.

A hand flew to her mouth. Intake charts. The familiarity of the carefully tabulated caloric and nutrient information was akin to a punch in the gut. When she calmed her racing heart to meet the girl's eyes, she realized her fan was near tears. Out of deference she handed the composition book, closed, back to the young girl whom reminded her so much of Salome it felt as if her heart was breaking.

"I think you're very brave," Alex said, weak words of encouragement when she could finally articulate rather than gape silently. "An eating disorder isn't easy to recover from." For a split second, she hoped she hadn't said something presumptions—just because the girl had a tally of her food intake didn't necessitate an eating disorder! She chided herself for her singular thinking.

She intended to apologize, when the girl beamed at her. "That means a lot…coming from you," she said, before her parents reached her and prodded as all parents do concerning her physical wellbeing. "Mum, I'm fine," she said with a slight whine of exasperation to her parents. Another grin, a silent: thanks, at Alex, and the girl was gone. The busboy stood as the young girl offered her hand and an apology, and the restaurant returned to its previous orderly routine.

"You alright?" Matt asked when Alex resumed her seat at the table. Thankfully, the commotion had occurred far enough away the cast and crew could not distinguish the specifics of the conversation.

She swallowed a sip of her wine, before answering. "You should worry about that girl, darling." She tightened her grip on her glass to stop her hands from shaking. Everything she had eaten turned to stone in her stomach as she envisioned the precise charts in the fan's book.

"You look a tad pale, Kingston." He leaned over to peer at her, and Alex sensed the theatrics with Ralph Fiennes and the last four years of the 20th century unraveling like a movie reel in front of her eyes. She pasted a smile upon her face as her stomach churned. Suddenly, she became conscious of just how much she had eaten. The feeling of drowsy satiety after a tiring day doing promotional work contorted to heaviness and an anxious empty sensation in the back of her throat. It had been a year or so (frankly, since that one interview last summer) since she'd experienced this… And it was still just as complicated to depict. "It's been a long day," Alex said, an excuse, "I think I'm going to head up, yeah?"

She waved at the cast members who wished her good night as she left the table. She pressed her lips together and absentmindedly ran a finger across the plump surface of her lower lip. The back of her throat was slick with moisture, and she had to keep swallowing back bile. Her stomach ached; in mind's eye, she swore it expanded with the multiple course dinner—never mind she had eaten a light lunch between tapings early this afternoon.

On autopilot, she called a lift, stepping inside when the door opened.

"I'll ask again," a smooth voice shattered her thoughts ending in a porcelain bowl. She jerked her head up. She wrenched away a hand that had found itself curled against the awful tightness in her throat.

She gaped at him, silently mouthing, "Matt?"

She didn't want to give in, reminiscent of days, weeks, years passing in cyclic self hatred—loathing herself, loathing that she could not rise above this. Now, fifteen years later, not quite in that suicidal place with knife pressed to wrist, she found herself sharing a lift, ascending with the brevity of molasses, with Matt.

"What's wrong?" He stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking every bit like a chastened little boy. She fervently wished he remained at the dinner so she could clutch her swollen, aching, stomach, so, the silence prodded her past indecision, beyond guilt.

She hesitated. "Don't say you're fine, Kingston, cause you're pale and sweaty, and you're never so, well, vulnerable looking."

She chewed at her bottom lip as she considered. The frantic need to rid herself of the ache in her throat won out, just like that day she chose not to eat a lunch after hunger had faded an hour past her planned meal. She massaged the bridge of her nose, sweeping across her eyes. "Can this wait?" It wasn't spat out rudely, just a calm inquiring to finish this discussion at a later date.

The lift doors opened as they arrived at the floor Alex's room was on. She stepped out of the lift as Matt acquiesced. "Uh, sure. Tomorrow then?"

She neglected to respond, hurrying down the hallway to her room and sliding the card in her door the moment the lift closed behind her with a ping. She tossed her outer coat on the bed too large for one person along with her small clutch and, the shaking in her hands gone, entered the small private lavatory the hotel offered and shut the door behind her out of habit.

She had the toilet lids pulled up and found herself bent over the bowl, face reflecting in crystalline water. Fingers poked at her mouth all autonomously. And the years slipped away, time rewinding as the position so familiar with her past rushed over her. She flipped her voluminous hair over her shoulder with her free hand. One hand acted as a makeshift elastic around her curls, arm twisted round her back, whilst the other plunged into the cavern of her mouth, index and middle finger thrusting in her throat, an awful pantomime: in, out, up, down, front, back, gag, please, please, please come back up.

Saliva dribbled down her hand and her eyes burned with the pressure building in her head. She retched—finally—and the last sip of wine, a pinkish color, a shadow of the ruby-red merlot she had sipped, trickled down her hand and plopped into the toilet. She relaxed slightly, knowing the process would be easier for a few more heaves.

Her prediction turned out to be correct; she yanked her hand from her mouth, back clenched as half digested lemon meringue pie spewed out of her mouth, into the toilet and splashed back yellow globules that splattered against her cheeks. Hand returned to her mouth, she tasted the beginning hints of garlic from her entrée interspersed by tangy and sweet citrus, when the lavatory door knob clicked, and the door opened.

She spit the last bits of dessert in the toilet as Matt slapped a hand against the wooden doorframe. "What the hell?"

Alex jerked her head up, heart racing from more than the vomiting, and groaned involuntarily. "Please, go away." Ignoring that her plea was reminiscent of the young fans' whining assurance of health, she prayed Matt would turn around, leave, and overlook what he saw.


	2. Confrontation

A/N: And this is the conclusion. Just a short little thing.

...

Chapter 2: Confrontation

She wasn't that lucky. Ten minutes later, Alex sat, armed with a cup of tea fixed with lemon and honey, facing Matt on the hotel bed. He sat across from her on the desk chair, body slumped forward. Although he had prepared the tea whilst she cleansed herself of chunks of vomits (and deliberated on softly finishing the disgusting act) under the showerhead, his hands remained devoid of his own mug. He stared at her, face resting on the palms of his hands, arms supported by his knees.

He sat with the languidly of a teenage boy. At any other time, his lack of decorum would have brought a smile to her lips. Television husband and wife sat in silence long enough Alex's tea went tepid even though she reluctantly sipped it. After purging again, for the first time in years, she still had half a mind to finish vomiting proper and shy away from food until it no longer disgusted her. Even the offence of honey was too much to handle. Logically she knew, nutrient or calorie wise, it didn't add anything substantial. Her stomach still felt knotted, and she'd rather not return to those awful sensations again. She grimaced.

"Do you need me to contact anyone?" Mat asked. His tone was grave and the severity of it made Alex want to curl up in a little ball. All of his flirtatious goofiness vanished, leaving a man whom looked every bit his thirty some odd years. Alex thought of Florian, and with all the issues they were trying to resolve internationally, then she thought of Salome, far too young to contend with this… plus the trepidation it would be passed down to her… She thought of her Mum and Dad here in England, and she shook her head. She couldn't bother them with this again, especially not at this hour.

"No," she choked out.

"No?" He clasped his hands to his knees. "Are you sure?" His tone questioning and she struggled to rearrange the grimace lining her face to something uplifting, anything a modicum more reassuring.

Her throat tightened. "Yes, I'm sure. I can't. I just…" She felt tears leak out of her eyes and she hurriedly glanced down at her tea cup. "I'm sorry." Her voice cracked between words.

A hand cupped her chin, raising her gaze to meet Matt's grey eyes flecked with blue, green and hints of brown. Matt kneeled with one knee on the bed remaining a polite distance away from Alex, clad only in only a bath robe and her underclothes. His lips quirked upwards and his eyes softened from steely insistence and a glimmer of his personality shined through. "Well, at least we know I'm right." His resolve hardened again. "You're definitely not okay."

Alex scooted over so Matt could sit comfortably on the bed. Her face crumpled and she wanted to jerk her chin out of Matt's grasp. Tears trickled over her cheeks and she nestled in the knowledge she looked as pathetic as she felt. "Matt, I didn't want you involved," she said, and the warm presence of Matt's hands on her chin left, leaving a numb coldness in its wake.

"You didn't want me involved?" He repeated back to her, carelessly straightening his legs out and flopped over on his side to continue staring at her. "Why? Were you afraid I would care? That I'd be concerned?" His words were spoken with an undercurrent of anger, and Alex found herself vehemently protesting.

"No, no, _no_! I don't want you worried about poor Alex who still can't manage to eat properly. It's horrid, okay? I'm supposed to be over this, not…not hiding away in a hotel loo sicking up like a kid my daughter's age!"

Matt propped his head in his hand, quietly ruminating on this novel information about his co-star who lived a whole life before he had reached the age of maturity. "Is this about that fan?" he ventured. "If you weren't okay with it—"

Alex cut off his bumbling attempt to protect her. "Yes, no. Not really, Matt. It's not that simple." She pressed a hand to her face. "You saw her. Right, skinny thing."

"She looked terminal," Matt agreed. He muttered, "Anorexic, even."

Alex snapped, "Because she is! She idolizes me. This anorexic child looks up to me, and I'm—I'm just…" She trailed off to recollect herself. "She's my daughter's age and in recovery, Matt."

Matt placed a hand on Alex's shoulder, a nice safe place, but still intimate enough to express his empathy. "I didn't know you had an eating disorder."

Alex cupped her hands around the mug of tea. "I don't like to think I do anymore, but… It sneaks up on you, you know." She stared into the thick dredges of tea leaves at the bottom of the mug. "It's been years since I've done that," she said in allusion to the scene Matt stumbled upon in the lavatory.

"When, when my first marriage ended," Alex paused, and when Matt nodded, aware, she continued, "I was distraught. I felt worthless, ugly. Here was a handsome man women were ready to drop their knickers for, and…And he didn't want me."

"But," Matt gulped, "You're gorgeous. I'd be lucky to look half as good as you when I'm your age." He took the mostly empty tea mug from her hands, and set it on the side table as her eyes lit up in humor.

"Thanks for the reminder, darling," Alex quipped, before her voice flattened as she carefully selected words to describe how narrow her world view was as a recently divorced woman in the mid-1990s (when, she reminded herself, Matt Smith was barely in secondary school). "He had an affair, an outright romance, for years with this woman almost twice my age, and I internalized all that. I always felt, ah, dissatisfied with my body, and when I heard about bulimia, it seemed appealing. You know, being able to eat whatever you want, no consequences."

"But, didn't you know the risks?" Matt asked as he rubbed his eyes. Alex intuited what question he meant; in the late 1990s, eating disorders were part of media, the controversial storyline in dramas, let alone the abundance of knowledge…

She leaned against the headboard. "I was upset and naïve. I thought: that won't happen to me." She tossed him a smile. "My family and friends put a stop to it fairly quickly, so I suppose that's good."

"You still do it, though." Blunt, and awkward as all hell. Typical Matt.

She exhaled loudly, blowing breath against her upper lip. She turned to Matt, tears announcing their return as a burning at the edges of her eyes. She covered her mouth, a vain attempt to stifle a sob. A hand curled around her shoulders as Matt sat up to embrace her in a one-arm hug. She shuddered against him, wheezing and not quite able to catch her breath. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she mumbled between choking gasps.

Matt squeezed Alex's shoulder. He leaned over, letting her head rest against his chest, which vibrated against her as he spoke. "You, of all people, don't need to apologize. Alex—?" Her sobs continued past his declaration.

"It's been years, Matt! It's nothing." She hugged her knees to her chest as he embraced her fully, reaching over with his other hand to entrench her in his arms. She felt him shaking his head against her damp mane of curls.

"You wouldn't be like this if it was nothing." Her breath hitched at the simple statement.

She tossed him a grin, tilting her head up to look at Matt with tear-blurred vision. "I don't know why I'm so upset," she confessed, her voice as unsteady as her smile.

"Bad day?" Matt guessed.

Alex mopped the remaining tears from her eyes with her robe sleeve as she extricated herself from his arms. "Bad month," she muttered.

She wasn't looking at him, but the sudden intense heat tickling her shoulders as he continued to occasionally squeeze her gave her an inkling of his crinkled brow and narrowed eyes. "Thought you had a dull summer after Macbeth?" Matt asked.

She sucked in a steadying breath. "Lots of publicity," she said after a long pause.

He furrowed his brow deeper, and she elaborated, endeavoring to explain the turmoil coiled in the relative quiet of August after a famed start to summer, "All the work is over here." She specified, "For me. It's just hard to tell people over and over I can't get parts because I don't look the right way."

"Sod 'em." Matt crossed his arms. "They don't deserve you."

A small smile graced her lips. "Well, that's very sweet, but it's the truth. And it's never easy to hear." It was a dilemma Matt was still too young to understand, she reflected silently to herself.

Her expression must've let slip several of her thoughts, because Matt looked at her with those steely eyes of an equal. "You're beautiful, Kingston. You were gorgeous in Moll Flanders, and you're gorgeous now."

The flirtatious innuendo slipped out before she comprehended thinking it, reverting to her usual banter with her Doctor Who co-star, "Oi! Is that what you do in your spare time? Nevertheless, I'm afraid my arse doesn't agree."

"Stop that!" he shouted, and the sensual smirk slipped off her face. "You'd think we're having a laugh," he mumbled, in part, to himself, then continued his tirade to Alex. "It's not a joke. I came here and—and my co-star, no, my friend—I find you doing that to yourself, and… I don't understand." He swiped at his face before looking into her eyes, and Alex felt something break off and shrivel up in her stomach.

"Oh my god, Matt, I didn't realize." She pointedly kept her gaze at his chin as she ignored the lone tear snaking a path down his red-flushed cheek. "Darling, it really isn't a big deal."

She halted his next diatribe with an upraised hand. "You're right; it is a problem. I should've done something about it before it, well," she gestured to the lavatory, silently adding: before it escalated.

"You could've come to me." Matt's voice conveyed his tears, and the small tenor reminded Alex fondly of Matt's first days on set—a nervous young star with the grace of a child.

She spoke in a voice she often used with Salome as she dropped her off with her father before a months' long gig, "The last time I…" She trailed off, intent to wave a hand at the lavatory door again, when Matt prompted, "Purged, Alex."

"Right," she said in a strained voice, "the last time I purged was, god—" She cut herself off in contemplation. "I might've done it twice, if that, at the beginning of Who?" She peered at Matt with slightly quirked lips. "David might've still been the Doctor, darling. So you'll have to forgive me if I didn't immediately think of you."

"Fair point," Matt said as he stretched his arms above his head. He turned to face her with a serious expression. "Next time, you can call me, yeah?"

"I'm hoping there won't be a next time. Honestly, all that rubbish this summer and then tonight. I think that fan got under my skin more than I should've let her."

Matt hid a yawn behind his hand, shrugging his shoulder sheepishly. "So, what, you were triggered?"

"I think so. And I wasn't eating mindfully." Alex flexed her toes on the duvet. She wriggled down against the bed, a brighter smile than any she'd had since early summer lit up her face, as Matt nestled down into the bed after her, exhaustion catching up to both of them.

"I don't think any of us were. Eating or drinking mindfully, I mean. Never thought I'd see David Tennant pissed." He wagged his eyebrows at her. "I think I respect him more now." He sighed happily and let his head drop to the bed.

Alex patted his head, momentarily surprised by the lack of fringe to thread her fingers through when her hand touched slight fuzz. "It's a bit different, darling." When she looked over at him after he neglected to respond, she realized (with a quiet snore on his part) Matt was fast asleep. She reached over to shut the lamp off and settled under the duvet, covering both herself and her younger television husband, lips quirking in another easy smile.

...

A/N: Huge thanks to sassawho for providing inspiration for Alex's flirtatious rejoinder (about her arse)!


End file.
